It depends on what your toilet supply lines are like and if you use a cold water only or a cold/hot water bidet, but a cold water only one (not nearly as uncomfortable as imagined before trying it) is very easy to install as long as your supply line has a shutoff valve and is relatively flexible.
It takes 15-20 minutes and it basically consists of unscrewing a few things and screwing them back together again.
I would second this. I read most of "No More Mr Nice Guy", and while I found it helpful in some ways it also was just not as "clean" in my opinion as "Boundaries" by Anne Katherine.
I have difficult times in relationships also, and your post sounds similar to things I've struggled with - general personality / demeanor acquiesce with uncertainty or internal disagreement, very flexible most of the time until very stubborn in certain ways, not feeling like I can recover my peace & internal clarity before another wave.
I recently read the book Boundaries by Anne Katherine (https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Where-Begin-Recognize-Heal...) and feel like it was exceptionally eye opening. I always felt like I had a normal-ish upbringing (but how do you ever really know, outside of egregious abuse?) but there was very little to no modeling of positive boundaries and individuation, and it has negatively impacted my relationships.
I've also read some of Henry Cloud's "Boundaries" book, but it was a little too Bible-oriented for me, but that may not bother you. His writing is very clear and he had many insightful gems sprinkled throughout the heavy reference to scripture.
It also may be worth talking to a therapist or counselor (and I would suggest doing it just for yourself first) before trying marriage / couples counseling. In my experience with marriage counselors (admittedly not a lot), the relationship itself is effectively the client. The one I went to wouldn't even discuss with us that our marriage may not be right for either of us whereas a personal therapist is there specifically for you.
I have tried a few times to get on the anki/supermemo bandwagon but have always struggled a bit figuring out how to structure the cards. Maybe I just have some hangups with it but would love to see a good workflow or best practices for incorporating it into my study.
I think specifically I would second guess myself for the syntax of the cards I was creating - and if there was another better way to do it. I always wanted to find almost like a guided walkthrough that would take me through the whole process or something and help me build the skills associated with it.
> I think specifically I would second guess myself for the syntax of the cards I was creating - and if there was another better way to do it.
This kind of perfectionism has also been bothering me. ("I need to write the card perfectly, or else it's not even worth doing or even actively harmful.") But there's a couple of points worth remembering to change this belief:
1) If a card is bad, you will notice it when reviewing. It will be difficult to remember (i.e. you will fail the card often compared to other cards); it will be annoying to review (there's a general sense of "ugh" and/or confusion when you see the card); it will be unexpectedly time consuming to review, etc.
2) Bad cards can always be refactored. You can suspend the card (where the card is still in the database, but removed from the learning queue); reword; or split into multiple cards.
Michael Nielsen [0] gives an example of a card which asked for the syntax for creating a symbolic link in Linux. He always messed up the order of the filname/linkname, so he created an additional card that explicitly asked for the order of the filname/linkename in the ln-command.
3) The only way of learning how to make good cards is by just starting making cards, and then noticing which ones don't work.
When a card doesn't stick, it's useful to ask yourself what doesn't work and why. Is the back side surprising when you reveal it? If so, maybe rewrite the card to add more context to the front to make it clearer what you're asking for. Do you always miss one or two pieces of the answer? If so, maybe split the card into multiple cards, each of which asks for one part of the answer. (Or add an additional card to direct your attention specifically towards what you struggle with, ala Nielsen.) Etc.
4) There's diminishing returns on card improvement. Time spent on perfecting an already OK card is time taken away from creating new cards to remember new information. If your goal is to remember as much as possible in a given time, spending time on perfecting already existing cards is trade-off not always worth making. (The quote: "a poem's never finished, only abandoned" comes to mind to highlight this.)
yes - great points! Now that I've gotten into the routine of using Anki, I basically end up taking notes in it. I'll cram a whole lecture in a card. I can always figure out how to split it up properly into multiple cards after a few reviews.
in general the trap of "letting perfect be the enemy of good" is so easy to fall into
^^ This.
Piotr Wozniak (the creator of Supermemo and the man behind spaced repetition software) has re-formatted a lot of his old posts and ideas into a wiki at supermemo.guru.
Use both liberally and you will learn how to learn.
I always wonder if this is a personality thing... I vastly prefer email (or slack/chat rooms) over phone / in person verbal, with some exceptions for certain types of brainstorming / planning.
I like to provide my thoughts on a topic in written form up front so people have a chance to think about it, and like the same in response.
Plus having a written record of decisions and even the thinking process is so helpful.
I also prefer emails... but this is not a personality thing. The email simply does not have enough dimension to replace normal talking.
You cannot express yourself because there is no body language and cannot talk things through because of the feedback loop. You cannot reflect to jokes or ask about the wellbeing on seeing someone coughing. You can ignore a pressed question by simply not answering - this is very hard to do in person. You cannot see from the eyes of the other person if he's really listening or just seems to be really tired.
It's great to have an email describing what I have to do and it is great for talking to someone you are familiar with. But it is a bad idea to use it for client communication or for doing business in general.
I haven't read the book and was going to ask about accurate vs precise but found this helpful article discussing it as it relates to software here if anyone else is curious about that distinction:
http://itsadeliverything.com/accuracy-vs-precision-in-estima...
It’s still obnoxious behavior that IMO should not be rewarded with a share. On my device, the “ad” was offscreen. Highly suboptimal UX. I saw the "Continue without an email address" prompt and thought “fuck them”, crashing my attention sphere like that. And forcing me to scroll-scan to get my place back. The web is full of startup how to stories; I’ll just wait for the next one to pop up on HN.
I mean that's fair enough, but do you have the same complaint about companies like NYTimes or other paywalled content? I only mentioned it because numerous people seemed to be very offended by it which seemed a bit odd to me considering you can just close it, but maybe that's just me.
NYT doesn’t force me to lose my place in the middle of reading. They have the mini bar at the bottom and when you’re out of free reads for the month, they are up front about it and don’t let you read a word. They also don’t offer to spam me in exchange for reading the article.
I use Green Arrow engine + studio, by the folks at drh.net, and it can do that very well. You can basically get a hook that will execute your arbitrary code for each contact - database lookup on a remote service, whatever. So you can build very complex newsletters that are totally customized to each recipient. And it is fast as can be (can pretty easily push 1M+ messages per hour if you have that much volume to send)
In order to take full advantage of it you need to be a developer though.
It's got great pricing too, esp. if you get their perpetual license and then run it on your own dedicated server (they set it up.)
I think the simplest is doing small consulting projects. There are often people looking to launch an app or build a prototype or whatever it is where you can work a couple hours a week on it and make a pretty good rate.
In my experience if you are a pretty good developer and good at communicating, you can find small bits of work without much effort. Now I'm doing a lot of consulting so charge more, but previously I would pick low stress / low mental fatigue projects, with people I enjoy working with (often pre funding prototypes), and charge between $65-$85/hr which could be another $500-600 / month at 2 hours per week.
I also never used any of the freelancing sites, and always found work through personal connections, since it dramatically lowered the risk of getting a bad fit for me.
It's not always prototypes necessarily but mostly it's about reaching out to people you already know and letting them know you are helping people on the side with software work.
I was very lucky in that I happened to be good friends with a super-connector type person who always has people asking him for help. If you know other people who are doing consulting work, you can talk to them, if they are good they won't be particularly protective because good people always have more work than they can do.
In general, it can take time to build this up but in my experience it's valuable to see how you can help / give to others around you, and it will come back to you at some point. You have to learn to avoid the time wasting clients and people who look for you to do spec work, but after you've learned to spot them it's not so hard.
spec = specifications. This could be 1. requirements gathering (use case focussed in words of client) -> 2. functional specifications (use case focussed in terms of developer / exhaustive) -> 3. technical specifications (low level plan on how to implement). Often 3. and sometimes 2. aren't done explicitly, but are part of iterative / agile methodologies. 1. however, must still be done imho
Thanks. I did know that spec by itself is short for specifications - I'm a developer, and also have software engineering experience, so knew abut your points 1 to 3. My point was that spec work seemed like something else. Also see my other reply to a child comment to yours.
I think in this case, the parent meant working speculatively [0] which can be seen as risky for some, but also a way to get some reputation & awareness.
Thanks. Yes, I think this is what the original comment meant that I was asking about. Now I remember where I read the term "spec work" - it was some weeks ago on avc.com, Fred Wilson's blog. And someone gave the same answer there as you, IIRC.
Cool! I was just talking about something very similar - some kind of parent + kid project kit box, for busy parents who want to work with their kids on something but don't have the knack / time to figure it all out for themselves.
I was looking for similar as well. Have an 8 month old and plopped him down to watch the intro video and he looked pretty interested. Looks like a bunch of different learning all at once, why not try to teach algebra at an early age, or whatever the thimble website is getting at with how early a kid can start learning to code? I am running a small business and don't have the time I use to have, mucking around for parts trying to nickel and dime everything.
Civil Engr over here who wants his kid to engage in this kind of stuff instead of handing a tablet over for him to watch youtube cartoons.
It takes 15-20 minutes and it basically consists of unscrewing a few things and screwing them back together again.